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Heres an off the wall one. Has anyone here done anything towards automating the control or alerting for a wood furnace?
Not a traditional device you find in an automated house, but we live miles from nowhere with no gas and electricity is expensive, so we've gone with a wood/oil multifuel as the best option.
We've got a HS Tarm OT50, which controls its water loop temperature itself by controlling its flap dampers so therefore self regulates until the wood runs out, at which point it flicks onto its backup heat source (oil burner).
It has a aquastat which turns on and off the main circulator to stop the boiler having load on it until its up to 40degC (to minimise creasote formation) and a overheat control which lets it dump main loop heat into a heatsink radiator to stop itself overheating.
I have *NO* intention of replacing the controls themselves, as theyre simple and mechanical and do a great job and are certified as ok for the house insurance to stop a runaway fire blowing the boiler up, however, Id like to somehow monitor it so I can see what temperature the tank is at without trudging to the utility room, get an alert that the temp is dropping so I can stop what Im doing and go throw some more trees into it before the fire goes out and it runs on oil etc. I might be busy in the workshop and the whole house system can alert me that I need to go in and put fuel in or something.
Id also like to know when its getting too hot, and maybe trend the output and how well its tracking the controls, see what time of year requires what output, maybe even find a way to see how efficient its burning etc, if it needs more thermal mass and other niceties.
So before I grab some dallas ds18s20's and start taping them to pipes etc and connect them back to some network capable device to roll my own, is there a easier way to achieve this?
A box, network connected with either web based or snmp or something reporting would be the ideal so I can sew its output into our house server.
Not a traditional device you find in an automated house, but we live miles from nowhere with no gas and electricity is expensive, so we've gone with a wood/oil multifuel as the best option.
We've got a HS Tarm OT50, which controls its water loop temperature itself by controlling its flap dampers so therefore self regulates until the wood runs out, at which point it flicks onto its backup heat source (oil burner).
It has a aquastat which turns on and off the main circulator to stop the boiler having load on it until its up to 40degC (to minimise creasote formation) and a overheat control which lets it dump main loop heat into a heatsink radiator to stop itself overheating.
I have *NO* intention of replacing the controls themselves, as theyre simple and mechanical and do a great job and are certified as ok for the house insurance to stop a runaway fire blowing the boiler up, however, Id like to somehow monitor it so I can see what temperature the tank is at without trudging to the utility room, get an alert that the temp is dropping so I can stop what Im doing and go throw some more trees into it before the fire goes out and it runs on oil etc. I might be busy in the workshop and the whole house system can alert me that I need to go in and put fuel in or something.
Id also like to know when its getting too hot, and maybe trend the output and how well its tracking the controls, see what time of year requires what output, maybe even find a way to see how efficient its burning etc, if it needs more thermal mass and other niceties.
So before I grab some dallas ds18s20's and start taping them to pipes etc and connect them back to some network capable device to roll my own, is there a easier way to achieve this?
A box, network connected with either web based or snmp or something reporting would be the ideal so I can sew its output into our house server.
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